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The Big Read Blog (Archive)

All's Well that Ends Well?

This week we're beginning with endings! Can you guess which Big Read novels gave us these five last lines?

1. "I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story."

2. "Some day it may seem worth while to take up the story of the younger ones again and see what kind of men and women they turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of that part of their lives at present."

3. "No one watching this woman smear her initials in the steam on her water glass with her first finger, or slip cellophane packets of oyster crackers into her handbag for the seagulls, could know how her thoughts are thronged by our absence, or know how she does not watch, does not listen, does not wait, does not hope, and always for me and Sylvie."

4. "He drew in a breath, broke off in the middle of it, stretched himself out, and died."

5. "So there was nothing to do but cross the water, and bring her home."

1. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
2. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
3. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
4. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
5. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

So did these novels turn out just as you expected? Or did you have another ending in mind? Post a comment and let us know.